Tuesday, May 31, 2011

here is my latest mani - a neon orange butterfly. I used a base of a pastel orange ( franken), then sponged on NYC Spring Street and Sally Hansen Tahiti Sunrise; I used a black stripe polish to create the partitions.

When I began to add the white dots, I dragged my nails across the bottom of my desk and destroyed my nails - so I fixed it up with the black stripe polish and just added TC. I have had -2- manicure disasters in a row

I am loving this bright orange and have already fished out all my orange polish's for a future manicure. bright polish's like the base here is the perfect thing for the dreary spring weather we are having in my part of the country.

- right now -

All that swearing and cursing about slow Internet speeds has caught up with me - our internet provider had some issues today and I couldn't get onto the internet. I am behind with my new blogs but hope to have that sorted out tomorrow. In the meantime - here is a dot-less, mutant orange butterfly wing manicure.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

This is some practicing with the stripe polish. The base I used is 2 coats of a pretty pink franken, a sponging of a white shimmer from Icing, and a coat of a sparkly older Sally Hansen Polish called Pina Colada Pop. I added the butterfly stickers { Fing'rs Flirt } and then added some holographic pink hexagon glitter to the swirly things & a coat of top coat

Sometimes I can make a beautifully tapered line with the striping polish, and other times it looks chunky and wonky - practice makes perfect but for mistakes there is always glitter (which i didn't use but should have)

I got caught up in crafty things this weekend: beading and sewing new throw cushion covers. the beautiful weather we are having kept me away from the computer.

Please leave your nail blog address in my comments if I don't already have you on my blog roll♥

Thursday, May 26, 2011

here is a fun ( and quick ) zebra mani. Not as well executed as my last two zebra nail looks, this was a rush job♥ I really wanted to get the best out of AVON Electric Green, here I have layered it over a lovely pastel green but still had to use 3 coats to get to a perfect opacity. I added the deep green zebra stripes to help disguise some brush marks and a cracked index nail.

Stuff I used for this mani; Avon Electric Green Icing Green stripe polish and Nailene TC

last week today

layering didn't help much

I still would need 3 coats to hide any brush marks or bare spots, all I really achieved with layering AVON Electric Green was a bit of a deeper colour. I do love this polish below; Icing Bamboozled Again, and wear it on my toes quite often. Below - on my pinky nail - is 1 coat of Avon Electric Green layered over 2 coats of Icing Bamboozled Again.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This is 3 coats Avon Midnight Plum, with a sponging of Billie Cosmetics in Alloy which is a lovely pink/purple metallic polish. I added 3 coats of Pure Ice Cheat'in and a thick coat of Top Coat. For some reason I did not take photos of Avon Midnight Plum alone..... I thought the glitter would be lost layered over Midnight Plum, so I decided to add the metallic polish for good contast.

I definitely needed 2 coats of TC to hide all the bumps from this glitter polish - Pure Ice Cheat'in is a lovely mix of sapphire blue and magenta glitter. Its a shame that I have only worn this polish 2 times since i bought it 3 years ago!!!!

This was my mani from yesterday - not terribly creative, but flashy enough for a cold gloomy Tuesday

3 coats of AVON Nail-wear Pro Chocolate Deluxe. This is a lovely brown polish with prominent gold shimmer. Like all the Nail-wear Pro polish's I have tried this applied wonderfully and dried fast. I swooped on Claire's Goldmine, starting from the side of my nail and fading towards the center.

3 coats of AVON Chocolate Deluxe - No Top Coat

Claire's goldmine is a translucent gold with silver and gold holographic glitter. I also have the silver version of this polish. I wore this earlier this year - it is a hoooooongy glitter and needs 2 liters of top coat to smoothe it out.

When I use a glitter polish with properties like this I try to use as little as possible. Mainly because removal is a pain in the bunz, but also a polish like Claire's Goldmine will need 2 or 3 coats they suck up top coat and remain 'textured' even after 2 or 3 coats.

here is 1 coat of AVON Chocolate Deluxe - this polish leans on the red side of brown

and 3 coats with No TC

These next 3 photos are not necessary for this post, I am trying out different setting on my camera, and different indoor locales for lighting. In Central Canada it is still chilly: I haven't put any plants in yet, and have only been able to wear sandals 3 times so far THIS YEAR.

Monday, May 23, 2011

It is hard to see in these photos, but I layered a nifty Color-Rama polish over this sponge mani called Give me the Chills. I love the finish that this sponge gives, It looks like a granite counter top. I sponged on Avon Jade and Olive Green over 3 coats of Avon Electric Green. Then I added a coat of Maybelline Color-Rama Give me the Chills, and a coat of Nailene Top Coat.

The Kmart Sticker is covering up the name, but I happen to have 2 of these ' Give me the Chills' polish's from my great USA Haul of 2010. ( I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiss you The Dollar Tree ). It needs to be lyered over something dark, (black or navy)

On the left is another Color-Rama polish Blazes of Blue; and on the Right is Give Me The Chills both layered over a dark blue polish. It has the same colour shifting properties as opalescent flakies, like in Hidden Treasure or the Nufeo polish's = just in 'stick' form ha ha ha.

I like this colour, Avon Electric Green but this is 3 coats and there is still some bare spots. It dried fast like all the Avon polish's I have tried. I know this would be spectacular layered over white - which is probably what I will be doing next. This is 3 coats - No Top Coat

...later in the sun. I marred my Index nail ~ I did not apply Top Coat because knew i would have to do a layered -look with this polish because it was too sheer for me.

I know there is another name for this older Sally Hansen Chrome polish. I have hunted around on the internet for the correct name but cannot find it. It is a brown chrome from the discontinued Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Make-up collection

It says steel on the bottle, so I thought they would be fine. But they rusted in a few of my polish's

You really do need quality STAINLESS STEEL BB's for polish bottles

I bought these a few years ago and only added them to a few franken polish's. I did not ruin any franken polish's that I couldn't re-make again. I did add these to some polish's that I had to throw away, thankfully I had back-ups of those.

Below is these same BB's in various clear polish's.

The smoothe silver ball came from a Sally Hansen bottle, and the 2 rusty balls are the walmart BB's that had been in a clear sally Hansen polish bottle. This was approximately 6 months later. When I repeated this recently these balls began rusting within days.

The top bottle has the rusty walmart balls, and the bottom bottle has the original Sally Hansen ballls